What time is it?

It’s time for some thoughts on time.

I sent an email to a friend who lives in the same time zone I do one Monday at 11:30 AM. She sent me a reply that same day at 8:32 AM. Now, I knew email was faster than the US Postal service, but I wasn’t aware they had mastered time travel. Is that on an HTML somewhere I can copy and paste in?

And on my blog, the weather stamp (at left) is exactly 56 minutes behind the time my computer clock says it is. I thought all computer clocks were calibrated to a big Atomic Clock somewhere on the planet that is supposed to be accurate to within a fraction of a second per century. So who is off? My computer or my weather stamp? Or is the Atomic Clock?

And this weekend, we switch over to Daylight Savings Time (DST). We “Spring Forward” and cause the sun to stay up an hour later in the evening (see what wonders our clocks have wrought). That means, it comes up an hour later in the morning and we morning people will lose an hour of daylight. I was just getting used to heading out to the barn with the eastern sky beginning to glow and having it be almost full daylight by the time I’m done and headed back to the house. By Sunday morning, I’ll have been plunged back into darkness for my chore time. The change officially occurs at 2 AM Sunday. How come they can’t change it a little bit at a time like maybe 15 minutes or so for four days? Then maybe we wouldn’t be so groggy on the Monday after the DST change.

And where, exactly, does time begin? I used to think it was based on Greenwich Mean Time, but someone told me that ,no, it actually starts somewhere off the coast of Australia. I have a little card in my rolodex that tells me that when it’s noon here, it’s 4 AM in Sydney, Australia. But 4 AM of what day? Would that be today or yesterday? Or maybe tomorrow? And did you know that, even though California, Montana and Texas are all geographically bigger than Nebraska, they each only occupy one time zone – we have two. It changes by an hour in North Platte. And how did they decide on changing it by an hour in just one spot? How come it doesn’t change by 15 minute intervals every 200 miles or so?

One time or day I’ve never seen on any clock or calendar is some. As in, “I’m going to go take Janell to lunch someday.” Stop saying that ‘coz someday ain’t ever gonna happen. It’s just not on the calendar. I checked.

Sometime isn’t on any of my clocks either; not the digitals or the ones with faces or the one on my arm.

Another place you won’t ever find some on is a map – not even on Yahoo or Mapquest. And especially not the wrinkled up mess in the glove compartment. That one’s so old, it might make Antiques Roadshow, but even if it is, you still won’t find someplace or somewhere on it. So even if you want to “take a vacation somewhere someday,” you can just forget it. You’ll never find a hotel someplace and you can’t get a reservation for some time.

Okay, that’s enough of this nonsense.